“Kempff Played on Impulse . . . You Then Would Take Something Home that You Never Heard Elsewhere” (Alfred Brendel)

One of the great piano masters (1895–1991) receives an exceptional tribute from the label with which he was most closely associated -a beautiful, limited-edition 35-CD box of Wilhelm Kempff’s complete solo repertoire on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics.

His distinctive sonority, although by no means lacking in weight and penetration, was based on an unforced, airy clarity . . . A clear-headed fantasist, Kempff tantalisingly combined Germanic "Innigkeit" with Italian fastidiousness and Gallic interpretative suppleness, without ever sounding as though he belonged overtly to any particular tradition . . . The cantabile basis of Kempff's playing is apparent everywhere in this magnificent collection. His desire to make the piano "sing" and override its percussive nature is particularly notable in his complete 1960s cycle of Beethoven's 32 sonatas . . . The best way into Kempff's magical way with this music is through the positivist major key works -- Op 2 No 2 is enchantingly post-Mozartian, for example, Op 10 No 2 disarmingly graceful and the "Pastoral" ravishing in terms of its subtle tonal gradations and expressive ease. These works are key to Kempff's whole approach: a refreshing, life-enhancing take on Beethoven that reveals pristine musical surfaces often buried under layers of interpretative accretion . . . [Schubert's] lyrical tendency and iridescent musical surfaces were made for Kempff's tonal lucidity. Where some pianists pin their audiences to their seats with the grand opening chords of D959, for example, Kempff fleet-fingeredly invites us in, as though opening a gateway through which unimagined treasures can be viewed . . . the Impromptus and "Moments musicaux" sound especially radiant here, yet so too a revelatory reading of the "Wanderer" Fantasy, which lacks nothing in power but refreshingly exchanges surface excitement for hidden depths. One is made continually aware of what is going on between the notes . . . [an] outstanding mid-1960s selection of pieces from Brahms's Op 76 . . . In the virtuoso high fences of the Handel Variations Kempff focuses our attention on the infinite subtlety of Brahms's inspiration, investing each variation with an indelible textural identity. In the nostalgia-laden pieces of Op 117-119, Kempff uncovers tiny details of articulation and musical layering that, far from proving a distraction, add immeasurably to the overall experience . . . a magnificent 1969 account of the "Goldberg Variations" [by J.S. Bach] . . . [a] spellbinding performance . . . the divine simplicity of a selection of his elegant Bach transcriptions is required listening . . . almost anything played by this keyboard titan is worth hearing . . . some serenely beautiful playing along the way, most notably in the Berceuse, Barcarolle and Ballade No 3 . . . Where Kempff's unaffected, crystalline clarity of thought has a largely enervating effect on Chopin, to hear Liszt played so naturally, without a hint of sentimentality or melodrama, makes one listen to these old warhorses afresh . . .